'sheep,' replied Host; not even a deer. The sight of one to a 'dog, viewing for the first time the "wee, timorous beastie," is irre'sistible; and if unrestrained by couples or thong, away he goes, gets 'blooded, and becomes a sheep-killer for life. No cure then but the rope. The cunning, too, practised by a dog so addicted is almost 'incredible. For instance, the Squire of Stover owned a grand 'Labrador dog, one of the Slapton breed, and a first-rate retriever; but, owing to a suspicion that he had a strong propensity for moor 'mutton, Life-buoy, with the collar of a mastiff round his neck, ' was kept chained as a watch-dog night and day in the stable-yard. 'But Jack Sheppard himself never conceived a more adroit plan for indulging his fancy and escaping detection than did the sagacious Life-buoy. In the dead of night, when honest folk were abed and all was quiet, he would slip his head out of the collar, start off to some distant farm on the moor-side, kill his mutton, and, returning. at early morn, slip again into his collar, and be found coiled up in his kennel on the following day as if nothing had happened. But, 'with all his cunning, he did it once too often. A farmer, who 'had been a great sufferer from his visits, set a watch, caught him 'flagrante delicto, and swore to his identity. It was then proved beyond a doubt, by an examination of the album Græcum lying 'round his kennel, that sheep-wool formed a large portion of the 'billets; so death was the sentence.'

And did they hang him?' inquired Frank, eagerly.

'No; Templer had enjoyed many a pleasant hour in Life'buoy's company, and could not be persuaded to get rid of his old ally in that way, and the kind-hearted man refused point-blank to sign his death-warrant. He'd consult his friend, Harry Taylor, he 'said, one of the true worthies of Devon, and take his advice as to 'the disposal of the dog. Eventually, I may add, Life-buoy was presented to Sam Peperel, a poor fisherman of Torcross, where, on 'many a stormy day afterwards, he did noble service for him, and · fully atoned for his former sins."

'Pray tell us,' said Frank again, 'what that service was?'

'Well, in doubtful weather, Sam always took Life-buoy with ' him, and, as it frequently happened on his return that mountains. ' of seas were breaking on the beach and that no boat could hope to 'reach it without help from the shore, a light lobster-pot line was 'given to the dog, and "Go ashore, Life-buoy!" shouted in his ear. Then the brave beast would jump overboard, and, with the end of 'the line fast fixed between his teeth, would battle with the breakers, now riding aloft on their very crest, now buried fathoms deep in 'the bursting foam, but, again rising like a murre, would at length 'struggle to shore, more dead than alive, amid the cheers of a crowd ' of spectators anxiously waiting for the line. The hawser to which 'it was attached was then hauled ashore, and a hundred willing 'hands, men and women, ran the boat in with a will until it rested 'high and dry on the sandy beach. One word more: Life-buoy < was never known to let go the line; and, as he saved more than

' one child from drowning, never, as it happened, was a more appropriate name given to a dog.'

During the time the good Doctor was telling this long story Mr. Cruwys was busily engaged in coupling and securing to the car the three culprits, not one of which, to judge by his hang-dog look, but seemed to be really conscious of the murderous crime he had so recently committed."

In various little groups, as they had sorted themselves, and, by 'fancy led,' had wandered off into the wildest nooks of Holne Chase, some to report the discovery of a new fern or a rare lichen, specimens of which intertwined with heather and honeysuckle formed a graceful coiffure to many a fair face; others to report a new vista, caused by some giant tree torn by a storm from its rocky moorings, and revealing a fresh landscape of exquisite beauty, such as Penry Williams would have travelled a thousand miles to paint; while some, indeed, had no story to tell, or, if they had, it would probably have been one of 'Love's idle whispers,' interesting to themselves alone; but, however that might be, the whole party had again reassembled at the 'Birds,' the long shadows of which now darkened the vale for many a rood around.

The intense interest aroused by the misbehaviour of the dogs amounted to a feeling almost of consternation among the ladies, some of whom scarcely considered their own persons safe in the presence of such bloodthirsty brutes, while the gentlemen did not scruple to express the gloomiest apprehension as to the serious havoc which the dog at large would be sure to commit on the moor-sheep, if he were not either captured or destroyed without delay.

'For my part,' said Parson Barker, 'I don't think we ought to 'leave Holne without informing the farmers of the catastrophe and ' warning them against the danger still in store for them.'

'Of course; that must be done at once,' added Cruwys; and I ' am quite prepared to satisfy all fair demands for the damage done.' 'Then you'll certainly be called upon to kill your dogs,' replied Barker; that will be the first and probably the only demand. The farmers to a man believe the vice to be incurable, and that a dog, once blooded, will always be a sheep-killer; so the death of the ' delinquent is the penalty always expected by one farmer from another; but for the sheep destroyed a money compensation is 'rarely demanded. It is a give-and-take custom which is adopted among themselves, and appears generally to satisfy the sufferer.'

'I'd rather pay a hundred pounds for the sheep,' exclaimed Cruwys, 'than see one of my dogs hanged. The poor brutes are 'irresponsible for their acts, and have only followed the impulse of 'nature in what they have just done: if that has been wrong, mine be the fault for not teaching them better things. No; I'll pay for the sheep willingly; but to punish my dogs with death would be ' a cruelty I'll never submit to."

'Quite right too,' chimed in the Doctor; I love a dog next to my 'fellow-creatures, and am persuaded that of all animals he comes next

to man in point of high intelligence and powers of reflection; while in sentiments of affection, fidelity, and moral worth, how much 'higher does he stand than the sensualist and the hypocrite! I hope 'I shall not be considered a heretic if I go even farther than this, and express my belief that the spiritual nature of a dog when he dies 'does not undergo extinction, but is destined to live in a world of 'spirits for ever. Is he not, are not all animals fellow-sufferers with 'man in Adam's doom? Then why should they alone be excluded 'from participation in the scheme of a future existence? Why, if they 'suffer with us all the evils of this sublunary world, should admission "to" an equal sky" be denied to them? Pythagoras, the chief of 'philosophers, believing in the transmigration of souls, taught his followers to abstain from the sacrifice of brute animals, on the ground ' of their immortality; and, if I mistake not, that great and good man, 'John Wesley, held the same doctrine. Is it not pride and arrogance, 'then, on the part of man that prompts him to claim an eternal 'existence distinctive from other animals; to assign, when death. ' comes, their bodies to utter dissolution, but a separation of the soul 'from its mortal tenement to his own? I think so.'

The Doctor was about to continue his argument in favour of retributive justice, the mercy of the Creator, and his own disbelief in the utter extinction of animals that had ever breathed the breath of life and paid its penalties, when he was reminded by Mrs. Cornish that the sun was declining behind the western ridge of Holne Moor, and that, unless immediate steps were taken for their departure, the darkness of night would be on them long before they could reach Heathercot; 'and 'tis a lonesome way,' said the timorous lady, that portion of it between Brookwood and Shipley Bridge; scarcely fit 'for wheels even in the day-time. I do hope the postboys will soon 'finish their supper and put-to without delay; they have no lamps, ' and the moor will be dark as Erebus; so pray stir them up, or I 'know not what may be the consequence.'

About fifty yards or more from the Birds,' on a circular mound of mossy greensward, the very spot, in Tom's opinion, which the little-folk would have chosen themselves for a moonlight dance, the convivial postboys were making merry; and Tom Franks, the king of the company, was at that moment trolling out a quaint old hunting song in his happiest vein. Now Tom, owing to his vulpecidal habits alone, was no favourite of the Doctor's; but, at the same time, no one appreciated the ready wit and versatile craft of the moorman more than he did.

"The very man to your hand,' he said, addressing Mr. Cruwys, ere he started off to execute Mrs. Cornish's commands: 'that's Tom 'Franks still carousing with the postboys; and if any one on earth 'can recover that missing dog for you, he is the man. Besides, I 'know no one who would be more likely to manage the delicate ' matter of settling with the farmers for their lost sheep than he; for in this district, always at their beck-and-call, he is looked upon as 'the farmers' friend, and is as well known and believed in by them as VOL. XXVII, No. 184.

H

'old Moore's Almanac. For a trifling douceur, I am persuaded he would serve you well ; so, what say you, shall I retain him at once?' By all means, and with a good fee, too; and if he recovers my young Hercules I shall not begrudge him a five-pound note into 'the bargain,' replied Cruwys, stalking off with Host to make terms with the moorman, who, having been so occupied with his festivities, had not as yet heard a word of the disaster.

'That's a bad go, fai'!' exclaimed he, jumping on his legs, as he listened with a look of horror to the Doctor's tale: blid vor blid's the law here along, as you know, zur; and I reckon the varmers, ' when they hear o't, won't ha' no less. But there; zay nort; laive un to me; and ef thickky grit dog on'y kipth above ground, I'll 'tak un alive avore the week's ovver, or I'll vorvit a crown-piece.'

'And you'll get a five-pound note for the job, Tom; but how do 'you mean to manage it?' inquired Mr. Cruwys, interested beyond measure in the prospect of recovering his favourite Hercules, a bigboned Wallachian mastiff scarcely yet out of his puppy-hood.

Well, yeur honour, that young hound o' mine, I call un 'Duster, will hunt the devil hisself, if so be he carry'th a good 'smitch wi' un; and, I reckon, wi' a sheep or two in his belly and 'the bellows ov un blowed out, yeur grit dog will be rank as ever was a fitch and more vitty-like for a nap than a brish over the moor; zo, 'you zee, us'll zoon be alongside un, and he back in that coach o' yourn avore many hours arter.'

So it was arranged; and the moorman, having gleaned from Host full particulars as to the quarter of the moor on which he had last seen the dog, proceeded at once with his ragged lot to start in pursuit of him; and, before the rest of the party had fairly quitted the Chase on their homeward route, he was miles away over Holne Ridge, cheering his hound Duster to the scent, for which that riotous puppy had already displayed so strong a taste.

AFTER several days' somewhat monotonous marching-for we dared not straggle much to hunt, on account of the number of hostile Indian marauding parties that were hanging about our flanks and rear, ready to take advantage of any unguarded moment and attack our camp or carry off our horses-we again entered the mountains by a gap in the Wind River range that led into the Gallatin Valley. Here we struck the Gallatin River about sixty miles south of its junction with the Madison River and the Jefferson Fork, all of which are tributaries, and form the head-waters of the Missouri. These streams take their rise in basins formed by successive mountain

ranges, and flow in a northerly direction through separate gorges or cañons, which concentrate at the head of a broad valley, having high lateral mountains, indented with beautifully-wooded ravines. The surrounding scenery was certainly very grand, although scarcely to be compared with the Alps, much less the Himalaya. To the southward rose the Gallatin and Madison peaks, the Three Tetons, and Fremont's Peak, whose lofty, snow-capped summits had formed our principal landmarks for the last two hundred miles of our route northward; whilst to the westward the Rocky Mountains rose in successive ranges, each overtopping the preceding one until they culminated in the massive cloud-capped, snow-crowned chain, the dividing ridge between the Atlantic and Pacific watersheds. It must not be supposed that the Rocky Mountains consist of a single lofty but narrow range; on the contrary, they are a succession of ranges or separate chains, which run more or less parallel to each other, and form a continuous mountain system, in some places nearly two hundred miles wide, not including numerous offshoots and outlying spurs, such as the Big-Horn range, and the Wolf Mountains in Wyoming and Montana. The region comprised within these ranges is so varied in its characteristics as to afford a sublime field for the landscape painter, although its luxuriant parks, lovely winding valleys, wild cañons, and desolate ravines, walled in by cliffs and snowy peaks that pierce the clouds and cast all kinds of fantastic shadows below, almost defy the pencil of the artist.

Our route along the Gallatin Valley was simply too beautiful for description. We passed between high serrated mountain ranges, which in the early morning were enveloped with fleecy white clouds along the summit, whilst every gorge and chasm on their rugged sides was distinctly discernible; and castellated rocks of white and red sandstone, and cliffs of basaltic formation, half hidden by groves of pines, reminded one of those ruined castles such as one often falls in with in the valleys of Germany and Italy. In some places cliffs of massive rock rose precipitously, pines and dark cedars clothing the overhanging ledges where they could find a foothold and sufficient nutriment, but appearing bare and rugged where the scarps were too steep for vegetation to grow. The valley being well watered with numerous murmuring streams, fringed with cotton-wood and willows, was filled with the richest pasturages, alternating with glades of short delicate buffalo-grass, with its clusters of pink flowers and piñon groves, which generally gave place to thickets of locust and scrub-oak as we neared the lateral hills; and on the more elevated slopes were clusters of noble pines and stately cedars, variegated with groups of good-sized oaks. At elevations where the tree-forest ceases, and the only vegetation consists of stunted shrubs and hardy ferns, the explorer will find thousands of wild flowers, some of them blossoming even in the snow. Here spring comes late in June, and the brief August summer clothes the heights with odoriferous grasses and alpine primroses, one of the richest and rarest of wild flowers; but I saw none of the delicate, sweet-scented edelweis, which is, I believe,